In the past, as an exercise aid device for providing a passive exercise stimulus to a user, it is known that there are a device for providing a simulated horse-riding exercise to the user sitting on a seat portion (for example, Japanese Patent Early Publication No. 11-155836), and a device for electrically driving pedals under the condition that the user's feet are placed on the pedals, thereby allowing the user to conduct a cycling exercise. It is said that these devices are useful to prevent life-style related diseases by providing aerobic exercise for reducing body fat to the user, and causing muscle contraction to facilitate sugar metabolism.
To improve the efficiency of sugar metabolism by muscle contraction, it is believed that it is effective to cause the muscle contraction at a large-volume muscle (particularly red muscle that contributes to aerobic exercise), and preferably muscles of femoral and back regions. However, it is often difficult to allow users with knee pain such as diabetic patients to conduct an effective exercise for causing the muscle contraction at the femoral and back portions due to the occurrence of knee pain or symptom exacerbation.
From these reasons, the device for providing the cycling exercise described above may place a heavy burden on the user's knee, and it is highly possible that pain is induced by the exercise. On the other hand, in the case of using the device for providing the simulated horse-riding exercise, since the user sits on the seat portion during the exercise, the burden on the knee can be reduced. However, this device is mainly intended to facilitate the muscle contraction at the trunk of the body such as the low back region. Therefore, it is expected to develop a device for effectively inducing the muscle contraction at the femoral region.
Additionally, in the case of doing the aerobic exercise, when an appropriate exercise amount is not set for each user, there causes a problem that the knee pain becomes worse due to excessive exercise, or a sufficient exercise effect cannot be obtained.